You’ll be deactivated for sure!
Chapter 52: You ask, I answer...
Hi!
I’m trying something a bit different today
.I’m doing this for a few reasons. One is that I feel like as this newsletter grows (which it steadily does. Thank you all so much!) I am very aware that it is a one way conversation. Yes, that’s mostly by design. I do have a Twitter, Facebook, and wildly unsuccessful Instagram for more traditional back and forth. But I wanted to make sure this here thing was answering questions people had, not just telling them what I thought they should know.
The other reason I wanted to do this today is that I have some big stuff coming next week and I wanted to send out a few more posts before then for reasons that will become clear later. Oooh cryptic! Anyway, this Newsletter will be the first place anyone will hear about this new stuff so stay tuned… or keep your email open or whatever? Stay tuned is such a good expression and is sadly now meaningless I guess.
Also, some last minute housekeeping weekend stuff.
As I mentioned before, it’s FOC for THE JOKER: THE MAN WHO STOPPED LAUGHING #1. So if you want to read it, it would help us a lot if you told your local comic shop today or tomorrow. Or just order a copy. Don’t have a local shop? Find one here or ask me for recommendations. I’m smart.
In not me news, a writer I’ve talked about on here before, Mr. Ryan Lindsay, has a new Kickstarter with the wonderful Louie Joyce on art. It’s called A FISTFUL OF PAIN and you have 6 hours left to get yourself a copy of this awesome looking book. What is it? They called it “A large-format, one-shot graphic novella about VENGEANCE, DRAGONS and SIBLING RIVALRY from award-winning Ryan K Lindsay & Louie Joyce.” Sounds cool, right?
And if the book raises $2,000 more dollars in the next 6 hours they will add 4 pages to it. And I want more Ryan and Louie, so get to pledging!
Anyway, that’s it for the time sensitive stuff. On to the questions!
First question. David queries-
“Loving the newsletter. My question is do you see a big difference in writing for DC and writing for Marvel? You seem to be doing more work at DC now?”
Hi David, thanks for the question. I am definitely doing a lot more at DC now. Between GRIFTER, JOKER PUZZLEBOX, TASK FORCE Z, DC VS VAMPIRES, DC VS VAMPIRES: ALL OUT WAR, DETECTIVE COMICS, a bunch of shorts, and now THE JOKER and WILDC.A.T.S., I’ve been very fortunate to be kept so busy. With all that and my indie books, there isn’t much time for anything else.
As for differences between Marvel and DC, there are a lot of small differences, but no, they’re pretty similar. DC and Marvel editorial work a little differently. DC and Marvel fans online behave a little differently. DC and Marvel’s writing staffs work a little differently. But mostly, your relationship to the company comes down to your relationship with your editors. They are your primary points of contact and your day to day guides through their respective universes. I’ve been lucky at both companies to work with some of the best in the business, so subtle editing style differences can be seen but mostly it’s just about making comics with people you like and respect. I will say I have really enjoyed working with everyone in the Bat office at DC so much. Ben Abernathy, Dave Wielgosz, Paul Kaminski (before he moved to Metropolis *booo* ), and Jessica Berbey have all been great. I would say that we just “click” very well, but then I talk to other writers and find out that everyone gets along with them great. I’m not special, they’re just great at their jobs.
Jess inquires-
“question time: WTFPFH rocks (this is not the question part, simply the prelude). how do you decide which characters's faces are on the credits page?, and which series do you take influence from when writing it?, i'm guessing a bit of walking dead !. ps please can the series go on forever. if they gang just find sid and spend 100 issues just messing around and listening to music i would dig that big time.”
Thanks Jess! I would love to tell you how we decide who is on the credits page, but actually Tyler decides that. I had a funny idea that we didn’t do because he thought it sucked. And then after the trade was done I explained it again and he was like “Ohhhh. I get it. That is great. We should have done that.” But that doesn’t answer your question. My honest guess? Tyler adds characters until he gets bored and then he stops.
As for what series we take influence from, that’s hard. It’s a lot of film, tv, and prose, of course. But for comics, yes THE WALKING DEAD is a big influence for sure. Nobody in comics does the cliffhanger better than Robert Kirkman too. Ellison and Corben’s VIC AND BLOOD was a big influence. WASTELAND by Johnston, Mitten, & co. was a big favorite of mine for its slow, rich world building. LONE WOLF & CUB by Koike and Kojima really made me fall in love with the episodic road adventure genre. Obviously Y: THE LAST MAN by Vaughan, Guerra, & co. is a huge influence on me, as is most of BKV’s stuff (including his current brilliant comic being delivered via newsletter- SPECTATORS). And then there is a lot of stuff that’s maybe not quite as evident on the page but is definitely in my head when working on the book. Stuff like LOVE & ROCKETS, EIGHTBALL, STRAY BULLETS, and CONCRETE. We try to only steal from the best.
James asks-
“What’s up with the records?”
Short and to the point. Unfortunately the answer isn’t. So the deluxe editions of WTFPFH? are all still coming. The first pressings are limited to one per store and the first 2 are out in the wild and often not that hard to find on ebay for a slight markup. The third has been at our distributor’s warehouse since early June I believe. I’m not 100% sure why they aren’t being shipped but I am trying to find out since, ya know, I paid thousands of dollars to make them. We changed the way these were being done, so that slowed us down. Now the first pressings and the second pressings are being done right after each other, so the 1 per store first pressings should drop and then the readily available second pressing will come out right after. As to when that is, it is hard to pin down. We have moved between 5 different pressing plants because of vinyl shortages, material shortages, covid shutdowns, staff shortages, and added surcharges that made it impossible to continue. But all records are in production. All test pressings have been approved. Last time I was given an update (about 2 weeks ago) was that they’d pretty much all be done by the year’s end. I will believe it when I see it, but that’s the news I’ve got. I can say that they all sound awesome and we are really excited for you to finally get them. We worked really hard to make this happen and we hope they make everyone happy when they’re out there and readily available.
Casey questions-
“I loved your punisher run so much. You’re run was one of my favorites since the original. Any chance you would return to do more?”
Thanks Casey. The Punisher is one of the characters I get asked about the most (the others are Hawkeye, Multiple Man, Magik, Havok, Nova, Kingpin, Quake, The Archies, and weirdly Sentry who I barely ever wrote.) I have a real soft spot for ol’ Frankie but I think I said a lot of what I had to say with the character and I tend to look forward more than I look back. I will admit that we had one more arc we wanted to do. It was big and crazy and sort of the logical conclusion to what we started in my first issue. My wonderful editor Jake Thomas was very excited about it, but it just wasn’t meant to be. I can’t say for sure why we stopped where we did, seeing that my 27th issue of the book sold better than my 3rd, but I think our time was just up. I will say that I am loving what Jason Aaron and company are doing with their run. And when you see that the book you love is in good hands it makes your desire to come back much less.
And our last question of the day is put forth by Aiden-
“Never been a big super hero reader but I love your personal books. WFPFH has been amazing so far. Any chance we get more we can never go home or four kids walk into a bank? Or new stuff?”
I really appreciate that. Comics is pretty remarkable for how forgiving it is of genre-jumping. Stephen King had only put out a handful of novels before he started writing thrillers and sci-fi stories under the pen name Richard Bachman (and yes, some of that was due to publishers not wanting to publish more than a book a year from any given writer.) So even the greats sometimes feel trapped by their genre. But the comics audience and the publishers are much more accepting than they are in any other field it seems. So people sometimes come to me and apologetically say “I don’t like ____ genre, but I like this other stuff you do.” It has never bothered me at all. I feel very fortunate to be able to make superhero comics, horror comics, comedy comics, crime comics, whatever I want. It’s creatively the most rewarding thing I can imagine. But that doesn’t mean I expect the same audience to suddenly want to read all of those. I am always flattered when someone does follow me from book to book and genre to genre, and many do seem to, but it’s not required. I’m just happy when anyone buys any of my books really. I think when that stops being a thrill I will have to get another job.
But that wasn’t really your question, I was just ranting. As for new creator owned books, obviously WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? is still coming out now and we have a lot more big fun stuff planned for that. Tyler and I are also already talking about next projects, which always gets us excited. I couldn’t ask for a better partner in all this then him, and part of that comes from us being able to tell each other when something sucks. So the fact that we are in the middle of a book we love and we have multiple ideas coming that really get us giddy is the most exciting thing in my career right now.
Josh Hood and I have long discussed doing more WE CAN NEVER GO HOME but are often both too busy. But we do both want to do something else together and I’m hoping the next year or so makes that possible.
As for other creator owned books, I should have some news very soon… Stay tuned!
Thanks everyone for writing in questions and sorry if I didn’t get to yours now. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. It just means I didn’t want to answer it.
Stay safe. Take care of each other. See you next week!
-Matthew Rosenberg
NYC 9/10/22
thanks for answering my question !! have a great week all :) xx